Boys Swimming: Danny Thomson ready to lead Hinsdale Central

Updated: December 1, 2011 12:12PM

Some champions are lauded solely for their ability, while others also are admired for their humility.

Hinsdale Central senior swimmer Danny Thomson is among the latter. That was evident at the state meet last February, when swimmers from archrival Lyons stood and chanted Thomson’s name after he broke the state record in the 500-yard freestyle.

“Sometimes you have to be a little bit of a jerk to get it done,” Hinsdale Central coach Corky King said. “But he’s got good perspective. For his age he’s way ahead of anything I could have done or perceived as a kid. I love his maturity level.”

Thomson has been one of the best swimmers in the state since his sophomore year, when he won the first of his two titles in the 500 free. He also won the 200 free last year. But he is the last person to lord it over his opponents.

“I just try to keep in mind that if somebody were to beat me, how would I want them to react?” Thomson said. “So I just try to think what would other people think of me if I did X, Y, Z.

“If someone else were to beat me and make a huge scene, unless it was a national record, I would get mad. So I try to hold myself to that standard, but at the same time I still have that hate-losing mentality. I don’t like losing.”

Thomson didn’t lose at all last season. He broke the 500 free state record twice, timing 4:21.43 in prelims and 4:21.04 in the finals, thus returning the record to Hinsdale two years after Downers North’s Burke Sims had broken former Central star Brian Gunn’s 20-year-old mark.

Thomson came close to eclipsing the record in the 200 free. His winning time of 1:37.56 was just .32 shy of the mark, something he hopes to break this season.

“I want to see how far I can bring [the 500 record] down, just swim it a little better this year, at least don’t take it out as fast, relax the first 250 and then take it out so I won’t be as tired in the back end and I can bring it back better,” Thomson said. “Then I’m hoping to drop time in my 200 free.”

If he wins both events, Thomson will join 1968 Olympic silver medalist John Kinsella as the only swimmers in school history to win five individual state titles. He holds school records in the 200 free, 500 free and 200 individual medley. But King isn’t worried about Thomson’s ego blowing up.

“He’s as good a kid as he is a swimmer,” King said. “He has work ethic, he’s coachable. If you tell him something he says, ‘Well, I’ll try it,’ and he never argues. And then there’s something, the heart, that isn’t teachable, that you can’t measure.”

Thomson, who carries a 5.3 GPA (on a 5.0 scale), will join Sims and former Lake Forest state champion Mitch Stoehr at Stanford next year, where he figures to swim longer distances. He was 11th at last summer’s nationals in the 1,500 and qualified for the FINA World Youth Championships in Lima, Peru, where he swam the 800-meter free and 1,500-meter free.

“That was a really great experience and I had a great time,” Thomson said. “I learned a lot about the sport and a lot about different cultures, which was awesome. It was an amazing trip.”

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